Buried Pipelines Subject to Subgouge Deformations

• Published in: International journal of geomechanics Vol. 7; no. 3; pp. 206 - 216
• Main Authors: Nobahar, Arash, Kenny, Shawn, Phillips, Ryan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Society of Civil Engineers 01.05.2007
• Subjects: TECHNICAL PAPERS
• ISSN: 1532-3641; 1943-5622
• DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)1532-3641(2007)7:3(206)

Engineers often model pipe/soil interaction events based on the concept of subgrade reactions originally proposed by Winkler. Engineering models often utilize beam and nonlinear/plastic spring elements to represent pipelines and the surrounding soil medium, respectively. The spring formulations, defining soil resistance to deformations in three-dimensional space, are usually assumed to be independent and the responses are discrete between adjacent soil zones. However, this idealization does not truly replicate a soil medium behavior. This study presents coupled numerical analyses of pipeline for the specific problem of subgouge deformations due to ice gouge events. Three dimensional continuum analyses of coupled pipe/soil/ice keel interaction using an explicit arbitrary Lagrangian finite- element approach were performed. The study compares the continuum finite-element results with Winkler-type analysis for the specific analyzed problem. A Lagrangian adaptive meshing technique was employed to model very large movement and achieves a steady-state condition; and reasonable ice/soil and soil/pipe interaction interfaces are employed. The numerical analysis shows the potential for continuum modeling of pipe/soil interaction events and develops a better understanding of ice gouging and pipe/soil/ice keel interaction.